M. Mark Miller, Author

Tag: Eleanor Corthell

  • A Tale: The New Camp Spirit Gets Arrested— Eleanor Corthell 1903

    Eleanor Corthell’s husband “could only fizz and fume” when she announced in 1903 that she was taking their seven children to Yellowstone National Park by team and wagon. But he could think of no good reason to stop her.

    By then the park had been transformed from a forbidding wilderness into a genteel resort where an unaccompanied woman could travel without fear of being attacked by Indians or bears. The Army Corps of Engineers had completed a network of roads in the park that were among the best in the United States, certainly good enough to be navigated by Mrs. Corthell’s sixteen-year-old son. There were stores where the Corthells could buy supplies and post offices where they could keep in contact with family and friends.

    Although the park had several grand hotels, the Corthells camped out for their entire two-month adventure. This meant that Mrs. Corthell had to manage not only the logistics of the trip but also cooking and laundry—all out of doors. That might sound like an enormous challenge, but as Eleanor would have pointed out, she would have been in charge of all those duties had she stayed at home.

    Despite the relative tranquility of Yellowstone Park at the time, the Corthells had plenty of adventures. Their travels across the ranch country of central Wyoming reminded them of Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian, which many consider to be the first Western. In the park they kept their eyes out for black bear cubs like Johnny Bear and  grizzlies like Wahb, who were the subjects of famous stories by the hugely popular naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton.

    Eleanor’s husband, Nellis, joined his family in the park and promptly ran afoul of regulations that were enforced by the Army, which ran the park then. But Nellis (Eleanor called him “The New Camp Spirit”) was a prominent Wyoming attorney, and he managed to talk himself down to a two-dollar fine.

    Eleanor’s story of her family trek was published in June 1905 in the magazine, Independent.  Here’s an excerpt.

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    We camped across the road from Old Faithful and saw it play five times; but we shouldn’t have stopped there, we were taking chances. The park rules are very strict in regard to trespass on the formations, and thereby hangs a tale: But then, you would not expect such a large family to pass among a whole valley full of yawning gulfs and smiling springs and shooting geysers, absorbed until they forgot time and place and circumstance and not have something happen, would you? Since none of them fell into a hot spring, what could matter?

    Well, “The New Camp Spirit” got arrested! And that mattered a good deal.

    The horses found feed scarce in the very heavy timber so came into the open where the road lay. Just across, on forbidden territory, was a bunch of grass that poor Star wanted. Now he didn’t intend to swallow Old Faithful, or tramp on its flinty surroundings. We were busy spreading a good, hot dinner on the tablecloth, so failed to notice Star quite quick enough. Presently we saw, and sent a boy to drive him back, but a soldier on horseback got ahead of him, and swearing like a trooper at boy and horse, he came thundering up saying, “Consider yourself under arrest, sir, and come with me!”

    In his very, very sweetest manner and most persuasive tone, Mr. Corthell asked, “May I finish my dinner first?” “Well, yes sir,” the soldier said, somewhat mollified. And he sullenly stood in the background.

    But dinner had lost its savor. This is an experience we had nowhere reckoned on. What if it meant jail—forgotten pocketbooks, broken wagons, floods, nothing ever created such consternation as this. But we didn’t fall into a panic. The chief victim was so placid, so serene, even sweetly content, that the example set composed the rest of us. Before the walk to headquarters was over, sweetness won the day, so the fine was only two dollars when it might have been a hundred. From this point on the “New Camp Spirit” took no more chances and always put out his fires.

    ∞§∞

    — Excerpts from “A Family Trip to the Yellowstone” by Mrs. N. E. Corthell, The Independent, 58:2952, 1460-67 (June 29, 1905).

    — Photo, Pioneer Museum of Bozeman.

    — Read more about Eleanor Corthell’s adventures:

     

  • A Tale: A Mother Takes Her Seven Children to Yellowstone Park — 1903

    In 1903, Eleanor Corthell bought a team of horses and a spring wagon to take her seven children to Yellowstone Park. She told the seller to send his bill to her husband, Nellis Corthell, a prominent Laramie lawyer. Nellis tried to talk Eleanor out of the trip, but in the end, she said, all he could do was “fizz and fume and furnish the wherewithal.”

    Here are some excerpts from Mrs. Corthell’s account of her family’s adventures.

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    Nearly half a lifetime I have lived in Laramie, with all the while a great longing to see the wonders of the Yellowstone, in season, out of season, when the house was full of babies—even when it was full of measles. As the older children outgrew marbles and dolls, I conceived the bold idea of stowing them all in a prairie schooner and sailing away over the Rocky Mountains, deserts, forests and fords to the enchanted land five hundred miles away.

    My husband offered strenuous objection, of course, to the crazy project, but could only fizz and fume and furnish the wherewithal—for the reasons advanced he found irresistible, such an ideal vacation for the children. A chance for their botany, geography, zoology, to be naturalized. To be drivers and cooks would throw them on their own resources somewhat, a valuable education in itself. So economical, too! Such a fine opportunity for stretching of legs and lungs, with the Park at the end! Reasons to turn a man’s head, you see, so when the boys wrote along the wagon top ” Park or Bust,” that settled it, and we started July 4th, 1903.

    After traveling several days, Mrs. Corthell wrote:

    Everybody is growing handy, even expert, in camp work. The boys can skin a cottontail or dress a sage hen equal to Kit Carson himself, while daughter can prepare a savory dinner or pack a mess box good enough for an army general. The children are eagerly interested in everything they see, hear or can catch. Tad announces that we have seen nine horned toads, caught six, mailed three and have two packed in little tablet boxes with which to surprise the chum at home. Query: Where is the medicine that was in the boxes?

    At the Paint Pots near West Thumb on Lake Yellowstone, Eleanor was vigilant.

    I was kept busy counting the children. Every time one of them moved I was certain he would stumble into one of the boiling, walloping vats of mud. That the mud was delicate rose, emerald green, or heavenly blue did not reassure me in the least. But the children simply laughed. Even the youngest pertly informed me he had not come all the way to Yellowstone Park to fall into a mud hole. Still the horrid smells and the horrible groans and growls, and the gaping mouths clear to Hades aroused such emotions of terror in me that in sheer desperation I hurried over to the lake.

    Eleanor summarized the trip this way:

    Like everybody else, we loved Old Faithful and the Morning Glory, we feared Excelsior, we admired the Giant, Bee Hive, Punch Bowl and a hundred other yawning chasms and smiling springs and spouting geysers. But the horrible rumbling—as if an earthquake were imminent—and the smell of brimstone made me eager to get my brood into the valley of safety beyond the Yellowstone.

    Altogether we traveled twelve hundred miles, stood the journey well, and never, never had such a wonderful, delightful summer. The children will have lifelong memories of the grandest scenes the world can produce.

    ∞§∞

    — Excerpts from “A Family Trip to the Yellowstone” by Mrs. N. E. Corthell, The Independent, June 29, 1905.

    — Photo from the Pioneer Museum of Bozeman.

    — You can read Eleanor Corthell’s complete story about her family trip in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.

    — You also might enjoy Mrs. Corthell’s story about chasing a bear away from her bean pot.

  • News and Views: Presenting to “Smart Women” Was Great Fun

    The Library at Aspen Pointe

    There I was in the beautiful lobby of Aspen Pointe, an independent living facility run by Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman.  I looked out over a sea of women’s faces — and they were all looking back at me.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

    Indeed, the audience was filled with “Smart Women.”  They cringed when I told them about Emma Cowan’s chilling account of watching an Indian hold a pistol to her husband’s head and pull the trigger. And they laughed when I read Eleanor Corthell’s hilarious story about her husband getting arrested for letting their horse graze too close to Old Faithful and sweet talking his way into a $2 fine.

    I knew that Eleanor’s granddaughter, Phoebe Montagne, lives at Aspen Pointe, and I hoped she would be in the audience, but I wasn’t that lucky.  After signing copies of my book, I asked to be shown to Phoebe’s room.

    After my escort introduced us, I gave Phoebe a copy of my book and showed her the chapter containing Eleanor Corthell’s account of  her trip to Yellowstone Park in 1903.  While Eleanor’s husband stayed home in Laramie, she took their seven children clear across Wyoming in a horse-drawn wagon to see the wonders of the park.  Eleanor told wonderful stories about fording a flooded river, chasing a bear out of camp, and counting heads at a geyser basin to make sure none of her children had fallen in.

    When I asked Phoebe what she remembered about her grandmother, her eye twinkled and a smile slid across her face.

    “I remember Grandmother surrounded by us grandchildren sitting on the floor,” she said.  “She would read us books like David Copperfield.”

    I’m sure a smile slid across my face too while I listened to Phoebe reminisce.  As much as I enjoyed talking with 75 smart women, that was the highlight of the day.

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    — You can read Eleanor Corthell’s story of her trip to Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.